Apple Mac Pro: 9 Ways It Wows

Apple's redesigned Mac Pro became available for order Thursday, arriving at once as a symbol of the company's capacity for innovation and as a reminder of how much the computer business has changed in the past seven years.

When the first Mac Pro debuted in August 2006, Apple was still known as Apple Computer. It would be five months later, in January 2007, that then-CEO Steve Jobs announced his company henceforth would be known simply as Apple, Inc. Among Apple's various product lines at the time -- Mac, iPod, iPhone, and the newly launched Apple TV -- he reasoned that only one represented a computer.

That wasn't entirely accurate. Each of those products contained a CPU. But apart from the Mac, Apple had moved beyond traditional personal computers. Jobs believed people would prefer the more curated, less complicated experience embodied by the iPhone ecosystem, rather than the one offered by computers -- at the time, maintaining a computer and keeping its software updated was onerous. And Apple's subsequent success proved him right.

In its fiscal Q4 2013, Apple made $5.6 billion in revenue selling Mac computers. But that's only about 15% of the company's total revenue during that period. Personal computers just don't matter that much to Apple as a source of revenue.

But they're part of Apple's history and a source of pride. As the company notes in its public relations boilerplate, "Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world." Stung by grumbling from investors about an underwhelming product pipeline and by doubts about CEO Tim Cook's ability to fill the shoes of his iconic predecessor, Philip Schiller, SVP of worldwide marketing, defied Apple's critics in June at the company's developer conference. "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" he declared, in reference to the company's impending Mac Pro.

Though ridicule was quick to follow -- some likened the unusual cylindrical design to a trash can -- Apple has always been the target of such criticism. Recall departing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comment about the iPhone in 2007: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share." Or Dell CEO Michael Dell's advice to Steve Jobs in 1997 about how to save Apple: "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

The new Mac Pro represents a redefinition of the workstation, at a time when cloud computing can handle many of the number-crunching jobs that used to go to workstations. It remains to be seen whether expensive workstations like this will continue to be viable as high-end applications shift toward cloud delivery.

Apple's latest offering is not the sort of easily expandable, modular, upgradable system that many computing aficionados prefer. That may not please everyone, but Apple has never aspired to be all things to all people. Apple makes choices and insists on some limits to balance form, function, and its business needs -- make a system that's too modular, and customers won't buy new hardware.

The new Mac Pro is a blazing fast desktop computer. If you deal with sophisticated graphics, video editing, data analysis, or you simply have $3,000 or more you want to spend on a striking desktop computer -- Call of Duty: Black Ops, anyone? -- you owe it to yourself to try the new Mac Pro. Now take a closer look at its appeal.

Thomas Claburn is editor-at-large for InformationWeek. He has been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications such as New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and television. He's the author of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and his mobile game Blocfall Free is available for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.

GlennG, as a grouch middle-aged woman, I empathize with you. I have owned several computers, and bought many for my children, and can't say I have noticed any longevity difference between the PCs and Macs. I come from a family of Mac lovers, but have always used PCs at work, so I feel like I have a fairly objective opinion and I really don't see that much upside to the Mac (maybe with artists and designers that's a different story). In my opinion, Apple has just developed a very devoted customer base.

Anything that can be done on a Mac can be done on a PC for far less $$$. Plus, if you know how to buy PCs (and I'm not talking about stock HPs or Dells), you can get better components than those used by Apple.

Apple at its best, for layman end user it's more than enough to learn that Mac Pro is available with a 3.7 GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of VRAM each, 12GB of memory, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage, i guess this statement and configuration is enough to attract user but cost is still on high part.

Please excuse the fact that I am going to sound like a grouchy old man. You see, I am a grouchy old man. I am 65 years old and my first Mac was purchased in 1990. It cost me over $3000. Of course PCs were cheaper back then too. And that is why PCs became the favorite of business, buying them in mass quantities for a 200 employee firm was of course cheaper. However, Apple produced products that were consistently of a higher quality and a higher longevity. As new Intel chips emerge and Microsoft Upping the ante as to computer power requirements it became necessary to upgrade your PC every two years. A Macintosh was built for the future. My first Mac, an LC II was replaced by a Quadra to which I added a G3 processor and then a G4 processor. That Quadra was replaced in the year 2007. That is 16 years using only two computers. The cost about $8000 total. In order to have stayed current using a Microsoft PC unit it would have necessitated purchasing at least seven computers at a cost of approximately $15,000. The short-term gain mentality is for MBAs. I will be purchasing the new Macintosh Pro. I hope to have to replace it when I am 75 years old.

And by the way, how do I get, "apprentice" off of my sign on? If I am in apprentice you people are embryos.

Where are you folks all getting this "vastly less" idea? Have you tried adding up the compoenets?

GPUs - ~$1000

CPU? - ?

ECC RAM - ?

SSD of somewhat equal speed and bus config - ?

I seriously doubt you're going to find a competitor system of comparable quality for all that much less than the $3k at the base level. I saw a comparison on another forum at the high end where an HP was $7800 compared to the $9600 Mac Pro, but they weren't exactly the same and everyone knows Apple over-prices their fully maxed-out configs (so we're not surprised at all).

If this were a true pro machine, most any true pro wouldn't blink at that kind of price difference for a OSX box. The cost isn't the issue.

It seems to be aimed at prosumers... for example, people like me who do 3D work or CAD, maybe some video editing, etc. who need more than an iMac. I'd love one. If I can cost-justify it, I'll eventually get one. The problem is that many true pros need more... and the new Mac Pro doesn't match other workstation class machines in performance. This leaves the true pros with the hard decision of building a Hackintosh or switching OS. And the performance difference will probably be compelling enough to push that kind of change. Up until now, I think these folks were hoping Apple would release a true successor to the previous line. They didn't.

I'm not sure it's all that overpriced. Considering that even in the base model, the GPUs alone would cost you over $1000... add the CPU and higher-end RAM and SSD, etc. It starts to add up pretty quickly. I saw someone on another forum try to get close in configuration with an HP and it came to like $7800 in comparison to Apple's $9600. I'm sure that margin would substantially narrow on the entry level model (and anyone who has ever followed Apple hardware doesnt' buy the top-end unless they REALLY need it... as they know it's overly-expensive maxed out.)

My concern is if it really fits the true Pro market. The folks who do video editing and rendering, or 3D animation, need as many CPUs/cores as possible and gobs or RAM. They also like to keep up with any moves in the GPU industry as soon as they come out. Since Apple only went 1 CPU, they are automatically 1/2 other high-end workstations, and the DIMM slots are less as well. With built-in GPUs, as awesome as they are, they will be 'out of date' to the true pro in a year or two. And since they are AMD instead of nVidia, they won't work with CUDA acceleration until software does well with OpenCL. If you use such a package, you're talking days instead of hours to finish a project. That's the concern I'm hearing.... NOT pricing.

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